I HATED THIS BOOK AND ITS SO-CALLED CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE AND THE MAIN CHARACTERS ARE AWFUL, SELFISH PEOPLE AND I HATE THEM.

A man and woman meet when she is on the verge of getting engaged to her long-term, perfectly nice, boyfriend. Man and woman spark and decide to hook up. They go on with their lives and strike up an increasingly inappropriate, emotional infidelity based, long-distance quote friendship unquote. When they are in the same city they boff, then she goes back to her decent. loyal boyfriend. Then she gets engaged to said boyfriend, so she and the man have one last goodbye boff. Then the woman MARRIES her boyfriend, even after the man shows up on her wedding day begging her not to.  SHE STAYS MARRIED. Man and woman keep their distance until man’s mum dies and woman comes to secretly stay with and comfort him while still MARRIED to SOMEONE ELSE.

I stopped reading Bait about 80% of the way through and discovered that this bullshit continues for two more books – which I did not read – and, from what I previewed, the woman’s nice husband turns into a horrible person as well, I suspect as some sort of device meant to make it not so bad that the man and woman have behaved abominably and it FAILS MISERABLY. Theirs is not some tragic love, their bond defying convention and time. They are vile people indulging themselves at the expense of their ethical obligations as grown ups. Man comes off slightly better than woman, but not by much. Neither one is actually making a sincere effort to live honourably. Breaking up with your nice boyfriend is hard, but not complicated. Marrying him because it is sensible and practical is selfish and mean.

The only bright spot in this book was discovering that there is a cheesecake store in Seattle called “The Confectional” which may be the best bakery name I have ever heard other than the one I have called dibs on for myself: The Butter Tart.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

Tagged: book reviews, contemporary romance, M. Mabie, romance reviews, Wake Series